About Us

The Trek… In 2007, after 26 years of marriage, Beth & I started an amazing and passionate journey into aviation by building and flying our own plane. Yep, building a real plane, in our garage – 18,000 rivets – hours of scuffing, de-burring, drilling, reaming, priming, rinse & repeat – parts in the attic, parts in the den and a propellor in the bedroom next to the treadmill we didn’t use any more. Most of our friends and family thought we were crazy, some thought we had completely lost it, only a few understood. It has truly been a life changing experience!

This blog and these pages will try to show to everyone how exciting, challenging and fun the process of building, flying and maintaining an airplane can be. Along the way, I hope we can share some of the knowledge we have obtained in the process and maybe convince others to follow our path.

2FlyAmerica… thats right, one of the things on our “bucket list” is to land our homebuilt airplane in every state in the USA except Hawaii, yep, even Alaska. A large part of the blog will be devoted to where we have been, where we are going and how we got there.

Lots of pictures… One of my other interests has always been photography. I have taken thousands of photos of airplanes, airshows and travel destinations over the last 20 years, most of them aren’t anything special and lot of them are on film or slides. I plan to share some of the better photos from the past while well documenting our future trips and experimenting with various forms of photography such as high dynamic range (HDR), panoramas, and black & white.

WHY… First of all, I am not a writer as you will eventually figure out. But, a conversation at a recent event made me realize that Beth and I do have a story to tell:

While hiding out in the Sunset Grill at the Sun-N-Fun airshow in March of 2012 during a rain shower, another couple was sitting across from us at the table. “So, I see the RV-9A on your hat, did you build one?” the guy asked me. Yes WE did, I replied… and about an hour later, Beth & I were out of breath explaining how much we enjoyed the building process to this guy and his wife and a few other surrounding listeners. No, we are not the first people on earth to build a plane, but, as a couple, it was an unusual success!

So, if you’re interested in what we have done or what we are doing, just enter your e-mail address in the “follow blog via e-mail” section in the upper right hand corner of the page and WordPress will magically send you updates to the blog as we post them or you can click “Follow @24golf” in the lower right hand column to follow us on Twitter.

I am looking forward to keeping up with you guys and I am a testament that you guys did build it together in your garage. I loved checking in and seeing the changes and progression as it all came together. I can’t wait for total retirement on our side. I am sure it won’t be plane related as you guys are doing, but probably car related as you know us. Keep on having fun and thank you for allowing me to join in vicarously through your journey. Love You both!

Props, to you two.
I have always wanted to build a plane too. My father has been a pilot for over 40 years and we’ve done some nice flying together. I’m getting my glider license as of late amount other things in my 50s. Word press sent me a note about you checking out m y blog. Are you planning on flying out to Sun valley anytime soon? it would;d be great to meet you both.
Brad

Hey Brad… We love to fly & have just taken up fly fishing! We do plan to come to Idaho, but it will not be this year. The company that sells our airplane kit (Vans Aircraft) is located in Oregon and has a fly-in every year. We plan to head that way in the next few years and visit Oregon, Washington & Idaho and maybe do a little fishing while there. We are going to Rapid City, SD at the end of July, on our way to Oshkosh and hope to do some fly fishing there to along with tent camping in the Black Hills. Building the plane was fun and one of the most rewarding things that we have ever done! Good luck with the glider rating and keep flying!

We can’t leave the back yard so we don’t think Mom will let us fly, but we know she loves to fly. So…….we put our kitty brains together and decided to nominate you for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award (http://twocatsviews.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/award/). Keep on blogging on flying!